This invention is in the field of brick manufacture and is specifically directed to a method and apparatus for rapidly forming bricks of irregular configuration having an antique or handmade appearance.
The brick making industry is highly developed and employs a substantial amount of automation for extruding, cutting and forming conventional rectangular bricks and the like having a geometrically uniform rectangular parallelpiped configuration in which the sides of the brick are planar with adjacent sides being perpendicular to each other. Equipment for producing the geometrically uniform bricks of the foregoing type includes automatic brick handling means for removing bricks from conveyor means which handling means requires that the individual bricks be equidistantly spaced in a proper geometric array on the conveyor in order for the handling equipment to function properly. Used or antique brick have become extremely popular in recent years and those of skill in the art have been unable to provide satisfactory equipment for the automatic manufacture of bricks having irregular surfaces with one of the main problems being due to the fact that prior known equipment for providing brick with irregular surfaces has been incompatible with the automatic brick handling equipment so as to consequently entail substantial manual labor and resultant expense. For example, irregular shaped brick members have been formed by taking conventional rectangular green brick formed of wet clay and dropping the brick from a height of approximately 3 or 4 feet so that the bricks are bent and deformed. However, deformation of brick in the foregoing manner results in the brick being in random array which cannot be handled by downstream automatic handling equipment unless the brick are manually aligned on a conveyor at a substantial cost in time and labor. Moreover, the forming of irregular brick in the foregoing manner results in substantial breakage and waste which further adds to the overall expense of the process.
Another disadvantage of the tumbling or dropping process is that many of the brick are deformed on all surfaces so that they do not have any truly planar surfaces and are substantially more difficult to process and lay than are brick having at least one planar surface.
Other approaches have included the use of embossing rollers or the like engaging the surface of the brick members as they are conveyed past the roller. Unfortunately, devices of the foregoing type frequently knock the brick over and destroy any previously existing uniform geometric array of the brick on the conveyor so that substantial manual labor is required for repositioning the brick in the position necessary for the brick to be subsequently handled by the automatic handling equipment.
Therefore, it is the primary object of this invention to provide a new and improved method and apparatus for fabricating brick of irregular configuration.
A further object of the invention is the provision of a new and improved apparatus and method for fabricating brick having generally irregular configuration but having one true planar surface.
Yet another object of the invention is the provision of a new and improved apparatus and method for fabricating bricks having an antique appearance.